To Do This is Within the Compass of Man's Wit

Tonto broke into new territory when he took the art of the clown out of ancient times; a time when he was given permission to, and was even expected, to represent the deviant side of human nature. I realized there was already too much of that about. And the Pope was doing a good enough job of that on his own, anyway. The fool’s errand had become an overpopulated pursuit. What the world needed was a trickster, similar to that of the traditions in mythology. This seemed amusing for awhile--until quite by accident, I stumbled upon the character of the professional subordinate, beset by giggles and clumsiness, enjoying in his own helplessness almost as much the indignation and incomprehension of his superiors. It was a bathos everyone could appreciate: the sensitive soul in the makeup of a fool. That was--until I realized that it would be impossible for Tonto to be the true voice of the people. By nature, I am too idiosyncratic. Freakishly so! I passed the thing on to my old buddy, Charlie. The unicycle thing wasn’t working out for him the way he had hoped, and was looking for a new trick.

I'm Up in the Spotlight, Ohh Does it Feel Right

There's no denying that falling for someone forbidden can be a buzz. I had fallen head over heels for Aiko, the daughter of Koji Kobayashi, the Japanese visionary industrialist who guided the NEC Corp toward computers and other high-tech products. The problem for me was that after our passion was unmasked, she was subsequently sequestered in the family penthouse fifty stories above any discernable access points. That Koji was one cagey kikuza, but he did not take into account the enormous size of my kintama’s. Only the cable, connecting our buildings, separated us. As it turned out though, the buzz I got from crossing that high wire trumped her sexiness. I then took this skill on the road, walking the wire between the tallest buildings in the world, while poor Aiko ended up a spinster taking care of dear old daddy in his old age.

Arrgh!!! That Hurts

In order to be the most authentic peg-legged pirate in last year’s Court Street Costume Contest, in Athens, Ohio, I enlisted the services of my good friend, Dr. Lewsome of Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Center for Reconstructive Joint Surgery, who owed me a rather large favor. Not long ago I had given his puckish nephew Lionel an alibi, in what could have been a delicate matter. The good doctor returned the favor by removing my left leg at the knee joint (not above or below) in an experimental procedure that would greatly improve the technique surgeon’s use for knee replacement surgery. I showed up at the party with a real peg-leg and came home with the blue ribbon. After reattaching the limb, Dr. Lewsome received accolades and a patent that would put Lionel through Cambridge. Just wait to see what I’ve dreamt up for this year. Halloween is serious business in Athens.

Point, Counterpoint, and Fusion.

The 1925 silent film, The Battleship Potemkin directed by Sergei Eisenstein, was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. The film is composed of five episodes or parts, one of which has the famous scene where Tsarist soldiers massacre the Odessans. In the most famous scene, N. Poltavseva played the “Woman With Pince-nez shot on steps.” But few know that Tonto Fielding made his acting debut as “Baby in Baby Carriage,” as the carriage rolls down the steps amidst the fleeing crowd. Lost in the credits, was that the use of montage was actually dad’s idea. This slight omission put Eisenstein on the map. The bastard took credit and my father never spoke of it until just before his death when he confided to me it was also him who talked Trotsky into writing the introduction.

The Hands of Time

During the age of Voltaire, a select group of master toy makers and clock makers set about designing several automatons that were almost perfect facsimiles of the original. At first they were solely used as sex toys for a number of Russian Czarinas, but through time they had adapted new technologies and with enhanced AI, had blended into society so well that it was virtually impossible to identify any of them. It was only through exhaustive investigative work, that Tonto was able to search out one these marvels. I could instantly tell, when he answered one of my questions, during the interrogation, with a hint of a colloquial dialect from eighteenth century Leipzig. Also it became quite clear that I was correct, when at the stroke of the seventh hour, a door in his chest opened and a small bird emerged chirping seven times.

Pirates? I Think Not

Not even the Strait of Malacca could keep me and my faithful K-9, Banshee (fully trained in the skills of biting, loud barking and reducing attackers to inoffensive positions in which she has the power), from the investment potential in Singapore. Tonto would go to any length to secure a casino license before his competitors, even if it meant sabotaging their on board security systems and sinking some of their yachts. I heard there was $5 billion on the line. That’s a lot of Alpo.

The World is a Stage

Oh, I was such a fool… to be perceived as nothing but the plain and idiotic numskull, instead of the daring political jester. The fine line between the two, often times, may seem a specter; the William Kemp instead of the Robert Armin. I love fools’ experiments; perhaps that is why I am always making them. So if the distinction is lost, I say play the bumbling, fat, immoral, boastful ass. It is so much more fun, in the end.

Riding the Proverbial Broomstick

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum wrote an allegory or metaphor for the political, economic and social events of America of the 1890s. To many, the Wicked Witch of the West represented a "malign nature," and the difficult physical environment in which farmers on the Great Plains were trying to make their living. To others, she symbolized left-wing Populism. Yet Tonto recently discovered a journal, which Baum kept when working as a journalist and editor of a small newspaper in Aberdeen, South Dakota, that reveals the true story of how the witch actually represented the infamous cowgirl stripper, Kitty Gonzalez, who repeatedly rebuffing his sexual advances. Kitty filed a lawsuit against Baum and the club, The Great Dakota Bush Company, saying she was "humiliated and degraded by that sleazebag and his cronies." Baum fired back, “just wait till I expose you to infamy in my new book, you ‘witch.’”
And so the literary detective work of Tonto Fielding once again sheds light into the landscape of implied meaning, and perhaps, ironic suggestion.

Just a footnote…It was Kitty Gonzalez who introduced to the world several moves which would go on to become part of the modern stripper’s repertoire: the pole spin; the slow walk; the fast walk; the boob smoosh; the bend over and look at the crowd from between your own legs; the spread eagle; the spread eagle with added suggestive finger placement; and most importantly the spread eagle with added dry hump of the floor.

Vocational Training

Here I am after emerging from the cave in Nepal with Dharma Master AAkash Dhakwa. I was being instructed in the Bodhisattva Precepts in order to learn how to be truly stupid. Where does wisdom come from anyway? It comes from stupidity. If you weren't stupid, you couldn't become wise. If you know that you are stupid, that means that your wisdom is starting to manifest. The lengths I went to, to prepare for my next job as a Greyhound bus driver, was extraordinary indeed. In order to pass the written exam to become a driver, you actually have to score in the "below average" level. They don’t want their drivers to think too much when staying on the roads for twenty hour shifts.

Not So Famous Actors

During the one act play, “Omissions from the Gospel,” starring Mark Twain Impersonator Max Reznik, the actor opened the stage prop book and read, “The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice." When he paused for the laugh, none came. So he peeked over the top of the prop to heed his audience. He was greeted only by blank stares. Poor Max never realized that he was actually reading from G.K. Chesterton’s, “A Defense of Humilities.” It closed that night.

Singing Cowboys

Tonto’s side kick of long ago and many cattle drives (not to be mistaken for the time I spent as a gaucho in Argentina), Ragshag Jim, wrote the famous cowboy song, “Days of 49.” The verse I am indebted to went like this—

“There is Tattooed Tonto, the roaring man,
Who could out-roar a buffalo you bet.
He roared all day, he roared all night,
And I guess he's roaring yet.
One night Tonto fell in a washout hole,
'Twas a roaring bad design,
And in that hole Tonto roared out his soul
In the days of Forty - Nine.”

Chainsaw Art

My first attempt at chainsaw sculpture drew rave reviews not just from the judges at the Athens County Rib fest and Saw-Off, but from several animal behaviorists, who were in attendance, as well. My piece sparked the supposition that the origins of human language could lie in gestures, not words. They took this intellectual breakthrough back to the University and later postulated that it went beyond simple postures or walking patterns - they are movements of the hand, limbs and feet, specifically directed at another individual. This is when Tonto became a foot note in the annals of Darwinism.

Bigfoot in Literature

Tonto Fielding, literary detective, once again finds arcane clues to Bigfoot in literature.

“Alone!-that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known
Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!”—Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton

Growl It!

Tonto remembers all too well how history can repeat itself. I could recount to you the horrifying tales, told to me by my great-great grandfather, about how he barely survived the East Coast/West Coast Coronet Band Wars of the 1890’s--most notably the renowned square off between the Oxford and St. George’s bands. Grandpa explained how many people believed that brass band music was just a glorification of violence. He on the other hand saw how band music was simply showing how horrible and inhumane life was in the new industrialized age. It expressed what was really happening out there. And then it escalated into conflict between West Coast and East Coast “wild” players with balloon lungs. Unfortunately, since only a few years had passed from the gun slinging days of the “wild, wild west,” the fighting became a vicious cycle that left hundreds dead in the streets. Sadly, life went on and many people in our growing country felt there was only one answer to problems like this: retaliation.

What Ever It Takes, They Say

The evangelical stratagem surfacing this year on college campuses across America goes by the anagram FUBARS (Fundamentalists Uniting Blasphemers And Rapture Seekers) for Christ. The impact, so far—undetermined.

Here we have Sissy and Melissa, the chief officers of the Ohio University branch of FUBARS for Christ, just before the stomach pumps.

Bigfoot in Literatue

Tonto Fielding, literary detective, once again finds arcane clues to Bigfoot in literature. “It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his greatness…” --Mark Twain.

Sayonara Sucker

Since Tonto was already well versed in many crafts, such as carpentry, woodworking, tanning, molding and casting; yet was feeling the need to express myself through the art of sculpture, painting and drawing; it was only a natural step which led me to the ancient art of taxidermy. But first I had to find a worthy adversary for the hunt. This meant that I had no other choice but to find and kill the illusive Ultraseven, who no doubt would be inimical to seizure, yet not impossible since his Ultra Eye had melted after the Magma attack while trying to stop Alien Magma and the Giras brothers. Once I tracked him down to the island of Ostrov Urip, I used the fact that Ultraseven's head could be detached and used as a throwing weapon against him. The projectile was captured in a modified, collapsible and telescoping net (a polygonal tubular frame formed by bending a length of tubular stock so that it forms an opening having a perimeter with angular corners and the ends of the tubular stock meet, now referred to as the Tonto net)). Hence we have this beautiful mount, just before being placed above my fire place.

Stroke of Genius

Unfortunately, Tonto’s idea for his personal aeronautic transportation system, which I dubbed, “Mono-Copter,” did not reinvent the air and space industry as I had expected. Yet it was not a total loss of time, energy, and shear genius, because when I turned on the TV in the middle of a sleepless night, I had my “ah-ha”... moment. I was watching this Australian bloke selling some cheap plastic and Indonesian technology as the greatest invention since the dirigible. It was at this moment that Tonto turned misfortune into opportunity, and the Mono-Copter became the SALAD SHREDDER, for the low, low price of only $19.99.

"Goths are not Vampires," Revealed to Tonto

One time when Tonto went for a Sunday hike through the Jostedalsbreen National Park, in the Sognefjord region of central Norway, he happened upon Varg Folkestad, former lead singer for the Norwegian death metal band, Dark Throne of Gorgoroth. We had a lovely conversation about how he was not now or ever had been a vampire. This was probably perpetuated by the myth that members of the Goth sub-culture who want you to believe that listening to his band, dressing in long black clothing, and being a fan of vampire movies and/or blood would make them full-fledged vampires. In fact Vargy explained that he was no longer a spokesman for atheism, antitheism, paganism and Satanism, but was now providing his fans an alternative religious expression, with what he referred to as, the “Scrolls of the Megilloth.” We parted company and when I returned home, put on one of my favorite records, “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas,” by Mayhem, thinking to myself, “what a putz.”

Honest Tonto, the Candidate

I can remember when I had decided to run for political office. Unfortunately I never made it past the first debate. My adversary caught me off guard when he asked if it was true that (A) I had ever attempted to bug the offices of my opponent at any time, (B) had ever been involved in a political sexual harassment suit,... (C) had ever been an anarchist who attempted to blow up a member of Congress by strapping explosives to my body and then ringing the doorbell, (D) had ever killed a man with blow dart, (E) had ever thrown a sporting event, particularly an Olympic fencing competition in which I had placed a large bet against myself, and (F) had ever been convicted of falsely inflating a company’s revenue and stock price in which I was associated. I was fully aware that the word scandal came from the Greek σκάνδαλον, and that this line of inquiry was nothing more than a metaphor for how improper conduct can impede or "trip" the public’s trust or faith in a candidate. But since I was running on the platform of “Honest Tonto,” I had no other choice but to say “yes” to all the above.